Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What your Bluetooth devices reveal

blog.dmcc.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 204 posts

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#51

Post by officeplant »

SoftTalker wrote: post #20
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

I disable bluetooth on my phone, though periodically I find that it's back on. Edit: iOS

With iOS the easiest way to make sure it off and stays off is to build a shortcut to cut off wifi/bluetooth. Otherwise it's typically off until you get geolocated as being back home/work and wifi comes back on.

I have a "store mode" button that just kills wifi/bt that I hit before I go into any store.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#53

Post by rsync »

kccqzy wrote: post #52
rsync wrote: post #45

The project describes - and shows - a web interface. Is there a simple CLI interface that can be redirected or pipelined into other tools ?

The article says the data is in a SQLite database.

Yes I see that and I wonder if the project includes a CLI tool.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#54

Post by littlecorner »

craftkiller wrote: post #26
SoftTalker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disable bluetooth on my phone, though periodically I find that it's back on. Edit: iOS

I have the opposite experience: GrapheneOS has an option to automatically turn your bluetooth off after a configurable period of not being used. So when I need to use bluetooth, I turn it on like normal. Then, without thinking about it, it automatically turns off. The end result is my bluetooth is only ever on for a couple hours each month when I'm making phone calls.

Did not realize I could do that! Thank you!

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#55

Post by ck2 »

Has anyone ever studied what happens with Bluetooth contention where thousands of people are gathered in a small space?

Like a marathon mass-start with 10,000 sometimes 20,000 or more people

How does bluetooth handle that? Or it doesn't?

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#56

Post by reactordev »

officeplant wrote: post #18
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

>There where A LOT of access points named "Audi", "BMW", "Tesla" etc. That's one of the funniest things about wardriving with Wigle on your phone. I can often see the SSID of "Jennifer's Equinox", "Jacks Suburban" right after I get cut off by someone in said vehicle. The vast majority of car bluetooth/wifi I see tends to have varying amounts of identifying information. It's almost as bad as the fact that apple still…

What would be next level wardriving would be to break into their Bluetooth and have a conversation about their driving habits.

It can be done, relatively easily.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#57

Post by supertrope »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #48

This could be used for a truly eye-opening art installation: a screen that as you walk by it, tells you when you were last there.. Even wilder would be to buy data on you in real time and display that.

The Hollywood movie Minority Report has a scene where an advertising display personalizes the ad by your name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#58

Post by dylan604 »

jasonfrost wrote: post #25
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

There's an Android app that can find devices, make profiles, and you can track location for as long as they're connected. So you can profile passerbys and even get notified when the profile passes through again. I forgot what is was called

Years ago when BT beacons were newish, I was talking to an AdTechBro that wanted to create the ability from Minority Report where the kiosk recognizes a user, not by eye scans but by recognizing mobile device, so they could offer a personalized whatever. The creepiness wasn't something they eased into. It was pretty much instant.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#59

Post by dylan604 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #20
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

I disable bluetooth on my phone, though periodically I find that it's back on. Edit: iOS

I miss wired headphones for this purpose. It's the only reason I even have BT enabled.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#60

Post by dylan604 »

patja wrote: post #27
oarla wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it stopped pretty soon stores figured out that they could flood you with advertisements over Bluetooth. In some places it was bad enough that I had to turn off Bluetooth.

How did this play out? Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed? Or did they spam you over SMS because they associated your bluetooth info with an account you have with the store, or contact info they bought from a third party?

> Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed?

This is my main concern over installing apps in general but specifically store apps. I've noticed that grocery stores are moving past existing loyalty cards and want you to use their apps for exclusively available digital coupons. The prices I'm seeing are very compelling and are on top of existing loyalty card discounts, and I could see lots of people using the app because of it. The assumed amount of abuse keeps me from lemminging my way through the store.

Post reply on HN